3 Comments

octaJuly 19, 2010 @ 1:44 pm

Thanks for linking these. I’ve managed to read or listen to all of them except Bride of Frankenstein which didn’t hold my interest past the first page. Overall I’m a bit disappointed with the nominations.

The only story that was entertaining and had me interested in seeing a full novel was Bridesicle. It’s very well written and provides enough intrigue and open questions in the world the author has created that you can’t help but want to know more. Definitely an author I’ll keep my eye on. Hopefully he explores some of these ideas in more detail. The main character evolved from being unlikable to a source of sympathy in such a short time. I thought he handled the dialogue very well. My only knock is the ending was a bit too neat, but I was in the mood for a happy ending so I’m not complaining too much.

Spar was gross, it had me squirming uncomfortably and relieved when I saw the end coming. Not sure what the author was going for here. Pure shock? I guess it’s one of those things only fellow artsy authors can appreciate. For me it was unnecessarily vivid and failing to meet a point.

The Moment would have fit in a Clarke short story collection. Not good but not terrible.

Non-Zero Probabilities barely qualifies as science fiction. How it got the Hugo nomination is beyond me. What a boring and pointless read.

I had a hard time getting into Bride of Frankenstein, but it gets better. My biggest beef is that I’ve actually read the book and this doesn’t jive with it at all. I wonder if Resnick actually read it either, or just watched old Boris Karloff movies.

I actually found Non-Zero Probabilities to be the best of the lot. Maybe it’s the math geek in me.

octaJuly 20, 2010 @ 5:44 am

That was my beef with Bride of Frankenstein as well. I read the synopsis and just thought “why?”

Non-Zero Probabilities barely touched upon any math. There’s the overall idea about the effects of probability when they are flipped, but it approached it from a philosophical angle rather than an academic one. The idea is good, the story was bad.